Author: Lonnie
Rating: PG (-13)
Genre: Friendship, angst, tragedy, hurt/comfort, supernatural
Characters: Bobby, Jack
Note: This story can come out as a bit confussing maybe, but it's kind of supposed to be like that. You'll understand in the end. I have no intention of making this story long, maybe two chapters. Title and lyrics is taken from Kurt Nilsen's Never Easy.
Summary: Something is happening to Bobby, but although he knows the truth, he refuses to believe and accept it.
Thanks to Torilei for spellchecking my story and helping me there:) Really nice of you. And to readers, I'm sorry for the mushyness. I hope it's not too mushy! lol. Btw it's also my very first Four Brothers fanfiction and man it's hard to write stories to this movie!
1. All the Memories
It was raining outside in the quiet night, melting the last remaining snow away from the streets. It was just past 4:00 in the morning, and not a movement came from Evelyn Mercers old room. One would easily believe the room was empty because the stout little form of Bobby Mercer in the soft bed could easily be overlooked. You always knew when Bobby was around, he made sure of that. He was smaller then his brothers, but he was also the loudest of them. People would have easily mistaken the little form curled up on himself for being another of the brothers, but it wasn't. Bobby Mercer may have been the toughest guy in town and never fell a tear in public, but he is also a human being and he had never felt more like one than he did now. His life was shattered. It never had been glamours or the type of life that someone would die to have instead of him. But his life had been liveable until now. He had lost what he needed the most. It was Angel Mercer who had woken his oldest brother up. The clock had now passed 11:30, and Bobby was still in bed.
"You gonna lie in bed all day?" he asked AS HE sat down on their mother's old bed that was now occupied by Bobby. The brown-haired brother just mumbled some sleepy words and rolled around to face his brother. His eyes WERE red and his mouth looked as if it had never been smiled with.
"Bobby," Angel lay his hand on Bobby's shoulder to comfort him as he felt a lump grow in his throat,
"It's going to be fine, you'll see. It'll take time, but we'll get there together. Now, I have to leave with Sofi, but promise me thai you'll get out of bed soon." Angel swallowed the lump as he took a deep breath.
"Yeah, man, I will." Bobby mumbled and closed his eyes as Angel left. He stayed in bed while he listened to Angel and Sofi move around downstairs. Fifteen minutes later, he heard the back door open and shut. Soon, the car engine started and vanished. He pulled himself out of bed and walked over to the window where he saw dark clouds in the sky, but the rain had stopped and some rays from the sun shone through. Yawning and stretching, he got out of the room and passed Jack's room on the way. The young boy was just standing by the window and looking at Bobby. A small tingle of fear struck Bobbys heart, and he closed his eyes.
"Don't scare me like that." he muttered quietly and walked to the bathroom to ready himself. By the time he was finished, Jack was no longer in his room or upstairs at all. Bobby walked tiredly down the stairs and into the kitchen, finding himself some breakfast and a glass of milk before he found his way into the living room. Jerry wasn't to be seen anywhere either, but Bobby knew well enough that he was most likely home with his wife and kids. Bobby placed the food on the table in front of the sofa before he walked over to the T.V and bent down.
"What's this?" he asked himself as he took a tape out of the VCR.
"A videotape, Bobby." Jack answered from the sofa.
"I can see that, sweetheart." Bobby answered flatly before putting it into the VCR.
"Silly thing to ask then." Jack told him without any feeling in his words. Bobby sat down on the sofa beside the young boy.
"Where did it come from?" Bobby asked as he looked over at his pale little brother.
"I found it. Memories. Check it out, Bobby." Jack answered, his voice just as empty as before. Bobby did as he was told, for a change, and put the video on play. Bobby sat and watched it scene by scene. The first clips showed four younger brothers outside the house. The first thing he noticed was Jack. The young boy couldn't have been more than eight years old in this one. Angel looked like he was at the start of his teens while Jerry was in the middle of it. Bobby saw himself and then remembered when this was. He was nineteen years old here and seemed to follow Jack's every motion, just like he did now.
"I used to be taller than you." Bobby grinned to himself, knowing that his younger brother was not beside him anymore. As the clips changed, the people in them grew older. Once, when Bobby was at the age of twenty three, he skated along the ice with who he remembered to be Lieutenant Green's kid. The camera was being held unsteadily, for the cameraman was also obviously on skates.
"Jackie! You'd better get this on tape!" Jerry, twenty years old at the time, skated past the screen and Jackie quickly followed. In the corner to the right of the screen, Jack had managed to capture Jerry colliding with seventeen-year-old Angel. Bobby smiled to himself with his mouth full of bread when he heard Jack laughing behind the camera.
"Jackie, come here now with that camera, sweetheart." Jack moved the camera to the side to show the smiling face of Evelyn, standing outside of the icefield. The screen turned dark for a moment before the moving pictures appeared again. Bobby felt sadness cling onto him as Evelyn filmed himself as he captures the twelve-year-old Jackie in his arms and spun him around. Jack screamed in between his laughter while his legs kicked around wildy.
"Don't be too harsh on him now, Bobby!" Evelyn laughed merrily behind the camera, but Bobby could see he had ignored it.
"Ma, I gotta make a man out of this kid!" Bobby rolled his eyes when he heard himself answering on the tape. He smiled again, feeling his heart breaking a bit at the sight of himself lifting Jack up again and at the sound of the kid's laughter. Evelyn moved the camera over to Jerry and Angel who were wrestling on the ice while Green's son stood close by, laughing. Some small scenes showed the boys and Evelyn celebrating Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, but also just short moments where they had been out driving, ice skating, Jerry's kids, and other random happenings. Again, the video blacked out, and Bobby took the remote to turn the video off.
"No, there's more." Bobby looked up and saw Jack sit on the kitchen table in the next room. Bobby moved his hand away from the remote, but kept his gaze on his younger brother. He moved his right leg up in front of him, rested his arm on the knee and his chin on top of that. The video came back on, and suddenly the clips were much more recent. It was Jerry who was filming himself now, sitting on the steps in front of the house. Angel came up behind him out the door and bent down to wave to the camera.
"Hey there! What'ya lookin' at, huh?" Angel grinned to himself before walking away from the house, the camera following him. The camera moved around annoyingly fast, but when Jerry finally calmed down the wild movements, it landed on Jack. The youngest was not the smallest of the brothers anyl onger, but the tallest. Even Angel was smaller when he went to talk to his little brother. They said something the camera didn't catch, but Angel jumped out of the way laughing as Jack lifted the shovel he had been holding and pretended that he was going to hit him with it. The snow had been coming down in masses that night, and the brothers had sent the youngest to work with it since Evelyn was out that day and couldn't punish them for doing so. Bobby soon see himself pop into the screen out of nowhere and throw an arm around his tallest brother's shoulders. "You're not getting paid to just stand there, fairy." the eldest laughed on the screen.
"I'm not getting paid at all, dwarf lord." Jack answered quietly, and Bobby laid a hand over his heart.
"Dwarf lord, huh? You're hurting my feelings, sweetheart." Bobby slapped Jack across the back of his head and received an annoyed look from his young brother.
"Aww, no crying, Jackie. That wont make you a man." This time, Jack couldn't help but smile and stuck out his tongue.
"Now now, fairy, you wait with that till you find the right man for you. We're family, you know?" Bobby told Jack, and the youngest sent him a look thai said more than any words.
"Ignore him, Jackie. That would make Bobby just pedofile." Jerry put in, obviously still filming. Bobby sent him a warning look.
"Yeah, more then he is already!" Angel added, and soon a snowball came flying at him. Jack and Jerry laughed as Bobby and Angel began wrestling in the snow. Bobby still sat with his chin resting on his arm when that clip jumped to another. Quiet tears ran down his cheeks. This clip was so recent that it must have been filmed within two weeks ago, yet it felt old when watching it as if it had been a long time since it actually happened. Jack was sitting alone outside on the stairs where Jerry had sat in the earlier clip, wearing his long, striped scarf and with a cigarett in his mouth.
"You know what, you little fairy?" Bobby heard his own voice again and could even see the cold fog coming from his own mouth in front of the camera.
"I love you man, but you smell as if you have been robbing a cigarette store and bathed in the stolen tobacco afterwards." Bobby couldn't help but snort a little at his own joke while he watched the T.V. The camera came up closer to Jack, and the youngest couldn't help but smile around the cigarette.
"Where do you get these jokes from, Bobby?" Jack's dark voice asked, uninteressted. He lifted his head and looked into the camera before he moved his gaze to his brother behind it.
"I got talent, Jackie-O." The camera moved around quickly as Bobby sat down beside Jack. Bobby turned the camera so it was facing both of them, and he grinned into the it while Jack glanced sideways.
"You're watching "So your little bro's smokin?", and today, you will see how to make them stop." Bobby told the camera as if he ran a talkshow. Bobby sat still in the sofa, tears running stronger than ever at the sight of himself and Jackie.
"It's pretty easy. You'll see." said Bobby on the T.V., and he held the camera still as he easily pulled the cigarette out of Jack's mouth and threw it down into the snow.
"There you go! A healthy, young, little brother." Bobby ended, and Jack looked at him as if he was crazy.
"What the hell, man? I wasn't finished!" Jack muttered, annoyed. Bobby ignored him and filmed the smoke coming from the burned out cigarette in the snow.
"I think you're losing it, Bobby." Jack said quietly as ever. The camera moved back to face the two brothers.
"I love you too, man. Hasta la vista, fairy!" Bobby waved at the camera and Jack rolled his eyes, and then the video turned black. Bobby turned off the T.V and VCR and looked up to look at Jack in the chair nearby. He watched his little brother, heartbroken.
"I'm so sorry." the oldest Mercer cursed himself for crying and hid his face in his arms.
Confussing? Well I hope second chapter wont be as confussing. The next will also be the last.